


Zugzwang

by FallingStories



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Human Castiel, M/M, Sad Cas, Sam's not the most sympathetic character in this sorry, Semi-unrequited love, but not really, sort of like end-of-season speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 18:18:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3906070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallingStories/pseuds/FallingStories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A curse and a bird break together. Castiel doesn't remember why he feels broken at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zugzwang

**Author's Note:**

> Zugzwang: a situation in chess where the only good move is not to move at all.

Castiel didn't remember how he got here. The days before he woke were fuzzy at best.

It didn't matter. What mattered was the work.

Dean was afraid of him. If he wasn't, he would have come to see him, instead of pacing outside the door in agonizing indecision.

Sam and Dean didn't know about the six-pack of beer, and the three bottles of painkillers, and the vodka he stole when he sneaked out last night. Castiel didn't know when he drank the beer, but he was sure he had because the buzzing in his ears kept him from focusing on anything but the work. He unscrewed the cap of the painkillers and popped a pill.

The wall above him was black. Castiel half-smiled up at it in satisfaction, inebriation making the muscles move more easily.

This was different than the last time. Last time had been confused and lonely, but not hollow and broken for reasons Castiel couldn't remember. The bandage on his neck was tight, almost tight enough to cancel the loose sensation of suddenly fitting inside his vessel. Always, confinement had reminded him of who - what - he was, even at his most human, and here he was, feeling small inside this skin.

Castiel knew the door was unlocked. He doubted Sam and Dean even realized. They hadn't even tried to open it after that first day, when he woke and screamed and raged at Sam without understanding  _why._

They thought he would be okay. Dean wanted his holy tax accountant in a spotless trenchcoat, not this scraped-apart humanity tied together with frayed string. They thought Cas would be 'back in town' after a week or two.

They were lying to themselves. He wasn’t right anymore. They didn’t even want to be near him. And Castiel couldn’t even make himself care.

That wasn’t true. Castiel decided he was a hypocrite.

Without his wings to define him, Castiel supposed _hypocrite_ was as good a definition as anything.

White shapes twisted through the blackness of the wall. They haunt his memory in a way that should have scared him. From the edge extend two hyacinthine streaks, with ebony and scarlet and amber specks forming constellations that Dean Winchester had never seen, that Castiel will never see again.

Castiel imagined the look on Dean's face if he saw him like this. The warped figure of a form he will never wear again. His true form. Well. Not anymore. Castiel imagined the fear and disgust in Dean's eyes, with an accurate certainty that made him cringe. He knew, somehow, and the sick feeling in his stomach resurfaced.

He painted burnet contours into the white form deliberately. The look in Dean's eyes that he could see so clearly refused to leave his vision. Tears wet his cheeks, and he wasn't sure when they'd begun but that didn't matter, for all he knew they began with him, and would die with him. Castiel was willing to believe anything.

The brush dropped from nerveless fingers and he stumbled back until he fell on the bed. He twisted, wrapping himself in the sheets until they overwhelmed the empty feeling of fitting in his body, tightening and constricting and confining around him.

He couldn't remember why he was here. He was here for a reason, he had to be. Sam had told him there was a cure. Sam brought him to a warehouse and Dean was there, chained and shouting abuse. And then Sam had taken his blade. Why did Sam do that? Castiel strained to recall. He had to be here for a _reason_. 

  Castiel remembered Sam hitting him and taking the blade, wrenching it from his grip, and then Sam had tried . . . 

No, that wasn't right. Sam would never . . . he wouldn't . . . how could he? Sam wouldn't . . . _"Cas, I have to, there's no other way!_ I don't have a choice! _"_

   _I don't . . ._

   _"_ We _don't have a choice! I'm sorry, but I have to do this!"_

No. No no no. Castiel shook his head wildly. Sam wouldn't. He couldn't, this was just the alcohol making him remember things that weren't real. Sam wouldn't have done _this_.

  "Please, Cas, I'm sorry, but I need your grace!" 

  Castiel was thrown to the floor and Sam towered over him. Everything seemed washed in vermilion and Castiel struggled against the force of Sam's foot on his chest.

Castiel screamed and sobbed, fighting against the bonds of the sheets around him, unable to free himself. He wanted to forget. His mind _needed_ him to forget.

  Sam cut and slashed at him, leaving bright scarlet lines on his arms and chest. Castiel couldn't fight. He could hear Dean shouting and raging and screaming invectives at Sam as Castiel fought against the weight on his body.

  Castiel knocked Sam's feet out from under him and he collapsed on the concrete floor. The colors changed to viridian, the shining color in Dean's eyes - _not black, not black not black_ \- and he dragged the blade from Sam's hand. 

He slipped to the floor, still sobbing. Every inch of him begged to make it stop, this had to stop, he just wanted it to be over.

  He staggered to Dean, who fought his chains and dragged against them.

  Sam hissed from where he was getting to his feet. _"Hic somno et obedientia ligare angelus dolore!"_  

  Castiel gasped as a feeling as though he were being stabbed in the chest ran through him. Sam leaned against the wall for support and repeated the Latin chant.

  He resisted the pressure to fall to his knees as pain lanced through him again. Castiel grabbed for Dean's wrists and stopped himself from collapsing.

 _No no no NO STOP IT_ ,  Castiel's mind begged him. But he couldn't stop. There was nothing else.

    Castiel pressed lips to Dean's, unable to resist the last chance he might ever have. Dean froze, cutting off his raging screams into silence. Castiel pulled away and without a moment's hesitation he raised the blade to his throat and cut out his grace.

 Castiel went completely silent, shaking, as the memory of that night overwhelmed even his capacity to respond.

  Cas sank to the floor helplessly. His grace flowed from the cut in his throat. Sam roared his spell again and the pain combined with the rest, until he couldn't even scream or breathe or think. His grace found the Mark, exposed and throbbing on Dean's arm. All he could see were Dean's beautiful eyes staring at him in shock and disgust, and then the pain took control and black filled everything.

Castiel lay still on the floor of the room.

He felt sick.

Castiel felt the sensation rise in his throat without warning.

He vomited into the crisp white sheets.

It explained a lot, anyway. Why seeing Sam when he woke made him panic and scream and strike out at him. Castiel understood how he knew with such certainty the look of disgust Dean would cast him with.

A knock at the door startled him. They never came to see him. And now he knew why. "Cas?"

"Dean." Castiel couldn't look at him. 

"I heard you screaming. You okay?"

Castiel didn't answer.

Dean took a step forward and stopped, eyes falling on the painting on the wall. "Wow, Cas. You do all that?"

"Yes." Castiel answered him flatly.

Slowly, Dean settled next to him. "Shit, you smell like a liquor store."

"I had six beers and half a bottle of vodka in eight hours."

Dean let out an impressed sound. "Well, guess that explains it." For a few minutes they sat in silence. Castiel didn't want to speak, but Dean had to be thinking of something to say. At last, he found the words. "Sam's gone."

"Gone, as in . . ."

"I threw him out. After what he did . . . I can't be around him for a while. Hell, I'm sure when the heat gets hot I'll beg him to come back, like always, but he needs to learn he can't do things like that. I wasn't getting worse until he fucked everything up and got Charlie killed, and chained me up like some kind of animal. I know he thought he was doing the right thing, but . . . it's not the first time it made everything ten times harder."

"And the Mark?"

Dean half-smiled. "Burned off."

Castiel turned away. The vomit on the sheets had begun to soak through and stick wetly to his skin. "And now you know everything. About my . . . _feelings."_  He spit the last word out. Angels weren't supposed to have feelings at all. Another commandment that he'd broken. Another reason no angel would want him back on their side even if he  _did_ have wings.

"Yeah. I know." Dean spoke softly.

"It's okay, Dean, I understand. As soon as I'm . . . stable, I'll be gone. I don't want to be a reminder of it." Castiel tried to stand, but he was still tangled in the sheets.

Dean helped him up, making a face at the slick of his puke, and got him unwrapped from the mess. "What are you talking about, leaving?"

Castiel averted his eyes again. "Dean, you don't need to be nice. You shouldn't pity me. I . . . I'll become a hunter. You'll never have to see me again."

"Cas, I don't want you gone. I just kicked Sam out, I don't want to lose you, too." Dean grabbed Castiel's shoulder. "Look, maybe I don't feel the same way, okay. But that doesn't mean I want to cut you out of my life. And I, I don't know what I want. How I feel. Maybe I . . ." He stopped. "Forget it. Don't want to get your hopes up if it's nothing."

Castiel swallowed. The dizzy feeling came back. His vision was tinted amarinthine now, and he wanted to kiss Dean again but he couldn't, but he was okay, and he was going to stay okay. "Dean, I don't want to lose you, either. But if I make you uncomfortable . . ."

"No, Cas." Dean sat on the end of Castiel's bed and gently tugged him down with him. Without a warning, Dean slid an arm around Castiel's waist and leaned against his shoulder. "You're one of the only good things left in my life now. And I'm not gonna cut you out because I'm scared of myself."

They stayed like that for hours, Dean rubbing slow circles into Castiel's back until his eyes were dry and he held Dean back.

The sick, dizzy feeling in his chest hadn't left, but it was duller, faded. Sam had almost killed him in his desperation, and Dean didn't know what he wanted, but as Cas pressed his face into the curve of Dean's neck, he found a little faith burning chartreuse in his heart, and decided it was better to keep things the way they were -- at least for now.


End file.
